


November Drabbles

by theelusiveflamingo



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Celia Loves Shitmouth, Cousin Incest, Crack, Creepy Cousin Cersei, Cute Baby Lion Twins, Dorne Is Cool, Drabble Collection, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Impending Religious Fervor, M/M, Masturbation, Mending His Hurt, Oh Lancel Lancel Lancel, Qybueno, Qycelle Best OTP, Sad Targaryen Feelings, Sadness For Everyone, Tragic Adolescent Torment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 7,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theelusiveflamingo/pseuds/theelusiveflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A growing collection of ASOIAF/GOT drabbles written in the month of November (and possibly beyond!)</p><p>Started in 2013, continuing in 2014!</p><p>I have removed all Arya x Jaqen drabbles from this set. They can now be found at <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3783448">The Arya x Jaqen Drabbles</a>. New ones will be posted there instead of in any other drabble set.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cersei/Lancel

Lancel is  _Ser_ Lancel Lannister now that Jaime is gone, and he is pleased despite the fact that he is a Lannister and ought to miss him. He’s not felt much affinity for his older lookalike in years. He feels as though the gods made him in Jaime’s image but then forgot to finish the task. Now, miraculously, it seems they want to take another chance on him.

So he brushes his golden curls every morning and night, and stops shaving off the blonde down that spots his upper lip. He finds himself praying for it to grow faster, though he cannot think of the right god for such a thing, and so passes the nights praying to a void.

He’s ashamed to admit the reason for his new rituals but really, words aren’t needed. He knows why. The reason is in the flash of lonely want in his cousin’s eyes when Jaime’s disappearance is discussed. The reason is in the prickle of heat up the column of his neck when she seems to find him useful. The reason is in the way that  _Task_ he carried out for her has made her skin look more radiant by the day, despite her sadness.

After all, Uncle Tywin married  _his_  cousin.  _For love._

His heart and flesh and thoughts grow more fevered each time he casts his prayers toward any of the Seven ( _but not the Stranger, never the Stranger_ ) who might listen. He knows not what he wishes for, exactly, until the day it happens.

A fist raps on his door, and—

_Her Grace requests your presence, ser._

The gods always listen, Lancel thinks.


	2. Rhaella and Viserys

Mother has slicked back their hair with a sticky paste that is making Viserys’ forehead hurt and pulling his eyebrows up so he looks just the slightest bit surprised.  He would like to share this with Mother, to make her smile, but her lips are pressed together so tight they look like they’ve disappeared, and she’s pushing back bits of hair from her forehead that aren’t even there because they’ve been slicked back and hidden.  One of her thin, white hands is holding Viserys fast against her side. The babe inside her kicks.

“You can take the hood off now, Your Grace,” says one of the men who is taking them to Dragonstone.  “Yours and his, too.  There’s not a ship in sight, I swear it.”

“They’ll stay on til we reach Dragonstone,” Mother says.  “But I’d like to go on deck.  I need the air…”  She stands up slowly, so slowly.  The boat won’t stay still.  Rhaegar used to read Viserys stories about ships, but the tales never talked of how much the sea keeps going, of how it makes people stumble and fall.  Viserys feels cheated.  “Will you come with me, my dragon?”

On deck the sun is setting over the Narrow Sea and the sky is full of colors.

“Your sister hurts me,” Mother says, her fingers spread across her belly.

“How do you know it’s a girl in there?”

“I don’t,” Mother says.   “I am only hoping.  If she’s a girl, you’ll be married someday.”  Her smile is gone.  “You’ll keep the blood of the dragon strong.”  Her nose is now wrinkled like she’s smelled something bad, but there’s nothing out there to smell but salt.

Father spoke often of the blood of the dragon, Viserys knows, and he likes how the words sound.  “Mother, isn’t Rhaegar the blood of the dragon, too?”

“Yes,” Mother says.  “But, sweetling, you must remember…Rhaegar is with the Mother now.   _You_ are next to be King.  You—”  Her voice shakes like the ship.  She crosses her arms around herself.  Viserys clutches her hand.  He knows all that Mother is saying is true, but at the same time, it seems like yet another story, just one that Rhaegar has not explained yet.  He must ask.

“Mother,” he says.  “Am I to be like Rhaegar now?”

She nods, and her purple eyes are wet like the waves.


	3. Cersei and Qyburn

The lion queen gets a look upon her face sometimes that Qyburn knows well from his days as a young, unenlightened maester.  It once blemished his face, too, long ago.  The dream-haunted people, they all have certain moments.  Their faces freeze, their eyes grow cold, and they look so young, so young.  Just for one moment—but that’s enough for Qyburn to tell they are haunted.  Their minds crawl with shadows as an apple might with worms.  There is something on the Queen’s mind, darkening her eyes and stealing her breaths.  Death.

_Imagine, taking a Queen as an apprentice._

What Qyburn does is no less an art than a blacksmith’s forging or the finest needlework.  His art has a purpose just like any other.  His art drives away his nightmares.  He has not dreamed in years.  For Qyburn has seen death.  He has heard its pleas, its cries, its rattle.  The more blood he sees in a day, the calmer he feels.  To open up the body is to let the shadows out.  To breathe into its cavities as it stills is to fill it once more with life.

 Qyburn wishes he could show her.  But he knows she must not see. 


	4. Cersei and Rhaegar

Rhaegar catches a glimpse of Cersei Lannister in the crowd as he plays his harp with fingers still sore from gripping his lance in today’s tourney.  She weeps like the others do as his harp fills the hall with the sounds of the blackened hulk of Summerhall, but her tears have a child’s innocence to them.  She cries with her eyes open, her gaze never leaving Rhaegar’s harp and silver hair.   _Well, she is only—what?  Nine?  Ten?  One-and-ten?_ —Rhaegar thinks.   _There are many years between us, and many still til we are to be wed._

Rhaegar watches as she dries her eyes roughly with the back of her hand.  He sees how she sits with her legs spread just slightly far apart, taking up more room than the other highborn ladies in the hall, and would have smiled had his music not been so sad.

_She is only a golden-haired little girl, not yet a woman grown, fed by gold mines and bathed by the Sunset Sea. What will she know of fire?  What will she know of sorrow?_


	5. Cersei and Jaime

Father is making Jaime practice his letters all alone in his bedchamber, even though outside the sun is shining and dogs are barking and a warm wind is blowing in through the window.  It’s cruel to have to sit inside and practice all these curvy lines over and over, Jaime thinks. He wants to be a knight someday, after all, and he doesn’t think knights need to write much.  He would go explain this to Mother, but Father is so wroth with Jaime for not practicing that even Mother cannot help.

So Jaime sits writing his name over and over; or, at least, he  _tries_ to, but the shape of the  _J_  hurts his eyes and twists up his thoughts.  He will never leave his bedchamber ever again; he is sure of it.  It might be time to plan an escape.

There’s a scuffling noise at the door, and Cersei slips inside, barefoot with her hair slipping out of its two braids.  She looks very beautiful this afternoon, Jaime thinks.  How nice it would be to chase her up a tree and then rescue her!  But he’s stuck indoors with this  _stupid_ parchment and this  _stupid_ quill.

“Are you done yet?” she asks.  Cersei can already write her name, and many other things besides.  It seems strange to Jaime that he can’t do this, too, since she can do it so well.

Jaime sighs and kicks the table leg.

Cersei walks over to his desk.  “Is that supposed to be your name?  It just says _AIME,_ and then there are stupid wiggly lines.”  She looks closer.  “That’s not what  _J_ looks like.”

“I  _know_ ,” Jaime says, rolling his eyes.  Just because Cersei is the oldest—!  “I keep doing it wrong.  Let’s change places.”  He tugs at her skirts.  “You do my letters and I’ll go outside and play with the dogs.”

Cersei shakes her head.  “Knights have to write their names too.  I asked Mother.”  She lifts her skirts and climbs onto Jaime’s chair, slipping behind him.  “I can help you.”  She puts her little hand over his writing hand, and together they swoop the quill down and to the left, down and to the left, over and over.  “ _That’s_ how you make  _J_ , look.”

Together they write a wobbly  _JAIME._

Cersei lays her head on Jaime’s shoulder.  Her breath is warm just like the air outside. It tickles his neck.  “Do you know how to write my name?”

“Not all of it,” Jaime says, and he’s not sure why he ever cared about the sun and the dogs and the wind outside, when this is so much more fun.  “Can you help me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dyslexic, but I do have moderate dyscalculia, so I'm basing some of Jaime's thoughts off of my own when dealing with numbers. I hope there aren't any glaring inaccuracies!


	6. Rhaella and Viserys, II

Viserys doesn’t understand it.  Mother is always _bothering_ him with the stupidest of requests.  He’ll be running through the Red Keep, sometimes with Rhaenys and her kitten Balerion (who is sweet as blueberries and cream to Rhaenys, but always scratches Viserys whenever Viserys picks him up), when Mother will appear.  It’s never one of her handmaidens.  Mother herself is always the one who finds him.  Viserys can kick and threaten a servant if he must, but he cannot run away from Mother.

And so Mother corners him today, finding him thundering down the corridors of Maegor’s Holdfast pretending to breathe fire like Meraxes.  She catches his wrists and takes him aside.

“Show me your hands, little dragon,” she says.  He keeps his fingers hidden, his hands in little fists.  “Viserys, I need to see.”

He slowly uncurls his fists and Mother runs her fingers over each of his nails.  “They need a little trim, Viserys,” she says.  “Just a little trim and then you may play again.”  She always seems to have a pair of scissors hidden somewhere in her violet cloak.

“ _Mother,_ ” Viserys complains.  “You always make them so short.  Won’t you let me grow them just a little longer?”  Mother’s eyes droop.  She never gets mad, only sad.  Viserys knows this well.

“No,” Mother says, already snipping away at Viserys’ already-short nails.  “No, I won’t.”


	7. Ellaria and Oberyn

Oberyn bows his head in a gesture of mock deference that he hopes does not betray the true deference he has been feeling of late before the sight of Lord Uller’s bastard daughter.  “Good evening, Lady Ellaria,” he says.  “Forgive me for saying so, but the Water Gardens look even more beautiful tonight now that I am in your presence.”  He swears the wench rolls her eyes at him.  “May I bring you more wine?”

“I’ll be drinking nothing from _you,_ Red Viper,” Ellaria says, sliding her hand over her glass of Dornish red.  The voice she speaks in is high, but there’s a depth to it, similar to the way a good Dornish red tastes first of fruit but then leaves a hint of tangy spices on the tongue.  Oberyn would like to make it sing.  “A man famous for his choice of poisons going near my wineglass?  Do you think me a fool?”  Her eyes are glittering.  Her smile curves wide across her face, a viper in its own right.  “I am not.”

“How can I win you, Ellaria Sand?” Oberyn sighs.  He desires nothing more at this moment than to slip his arm around her waist, to imagine her bearing his children.  But he knows he must charm her with his words, not his touch.  This is what she deserves.

“Would you really like to know?” Ellaria laughs.  She gestures with her wineglass toward some lady of Vaith, who is speaking with another of his brother’s guests.   “Her.  I’d like you to get me her.  She’s a beautiful thing, isn’t she?”

“You want me to win that girl’s affections and bring her to you?” Oberyn is surprised, but he cannot say he isn’t pleased.  “I’m sure I can manage that.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ellaria says, her smile growing brighter still.  “We’ll start there.”


	8. Daenerys and Viserys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of abuse.

It is a strangely hot day in Braavos and Viserys has taken Dany out so that Ser Darry can have a nap.  He is getting too old to have a four year-old around the house all the time, he says with an embarrassed smile, even a quiet one like little Daenerys.

So they’ve taken refuge from the heat by nestling up against one of the stone buildings nearby Ser Darry’s house.  The way it hangs over the roadway almost blocks the sun, and the water in the canal somehow cools down the air.  Viserys plays with the ends of his silvery-blonde hair; they’re splitting and look dirty, straggly, not at all befitting his royal blood.  Dany is finishing up a sweet.  It’s red and sticky and all over her pale chin.  She has Viserys’ hair and her eyes are wide and light just as all who have blood of the Dragon have, but she doesn’t look like Mother, not at all like Mother, and Viserys hates her for that.

Ser Darry always treats Viserys like the king he should be—no, like the king he  _is._ And if Viserys is King, why, Dany is Queen.  And Queens, he knows, do  _not_ sit in public with sticky faces.  Not even if they are far away from home in Braavos.

“Dany, let’s go,” he says, shaking her pale shoulder.  “Let’s go back.  Quietly, so we don’t wake up Ser Darry.”

“I want another,” Dany says, slipping the last of her sticky sweet into her mouth.

“No,” Viserys responds.

“But I want another!”

Viserys sometimes can’t believe he has to spend his days reprimanding a child.  “I don’t have the coin for more, and I don’t want to ask Ser Darry for more coin just to feed you sweets.  Let’s  _go,_ Dany.”

“But I want  _another!_ ”

As if by magic, Viserys reaches and tugs Dany’s loose dragon-hair,  _hard_.  He tugs it so hard her head snaps back.  Her mouth closes and she scrambles upright.  There are tears flooding her violet eyes, but she says no more.

 _That was easy_ , Viserys thinks.


	9. Robert Baratheon

“These are the last of their things that remain, Your Grace.”

The knight holds out a pair of brown shoes, too small to be anyone but a child’s, too delicate to be anyone but a girl’s.  Behind Robert, the pyres crackle  _(burning them according to their dragon traditions, that’s more than those savages deserve)_ and the scent turns even his warrior’s stomach.  The sight before him does not make sense.

“Baby shoes?”

“Yes, just the shoes.  They were Rhae—the princess’s, I suppose.”

Robert considers himself a fighter and a lover equally, and he wonders what the sense would be in burning a babe’s shoes.  After all, children do no harm, he thinks.  They’re innocent creatures.  It wasn’t Rhaenys Targaryen who kidnapped—

The dizzying smell and warmth of the flames is making Robert dizzy, unsteady: suddenly he pictures the children he and Lyanna would have had.  Dark-haired, light-eyed, strong things.  Lyanna Stark was a blaze of heat, as tough as the wife of any proud Baratheon ought to be; she’d have borne him fine heirs, one more perfect than the next.  He thinks of these babes who would never learn to walk on their chubby legs, who would never need shoes of their own.

“Throw them in the fire.”

 “Your Grace—?”

“I said  _burn them_ , damn you.”


	10. Cersei and Myrcella, Modern AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossingwinter requested: a drabble about Myrcella and being allergic to cats...

The trip home from the allergist Dr. Pycelle sent them to is one of the saddest times Myrcella can remember.  It is even sadder than all the nights the teachers call home from school to say that Joff was bad and then Mother screams things like _You just don’t understand him because he is brighter than all your other students_ , and then slams the phone down and uncorks the wine bottle and calls Uncle Jaime.  The car is so quiet, it’s just her and Mother and horns honking and the sound of her sniffling into a tissue.  Sniffling because she is crying, of course, but also because her nose has been runny and clogged for weeks and now they know why.  She is allergic to cats.

“Maybe we can get goldfish,” Mother says for the third time since they left the doctor’s office.  “Would you like that?”  She pats Myrcella on the knee when they stop at a red light.  Myrcella notices a few of her fingernails look bitten off, even though Mother is always telling Tommen to stop biting his.

“No,” Myrcella sniffs, and a fresh wave of tears pours out of her hot-feeling eyes.

“Cella, please,” Mother says, and the car behind them honks and Mother holds her finger up the way Uncle Jaime and Uncle Tyrion also do when they drive.  It is a special Lannister thing, probably.  “If you’re still crying like that when Tommen gets home, _he’ll_ start crying, and we all know he cries enough as it is.”

 _But why can’t he cry?  It’s his kittens I’m allergic to, Ser Pounce and Lady Whiskers and stupid little Boots_ , Myrcella thinks, but Mother has a lot of boring things to say about tears being a bad weapon for a woman, so Myrcella wads the tissue up in the pocket of her jeans and drapes her long blonde curls over her face instead.  She kicks angrily at Joff’s pair of soccer cleats that are always lying on the floor of the red car, and Mother doesn’t tell her to stop, not even once.

When they get home, Mother lets Myrcella watch Mulan even though there’s school tomorrow and Myrcella has a worksheet on her 7 times tables.  They curl up on the couch together and share a bowl of raspberry sorbet.  Ser Pounce and Boots come to rub against Myrcella’s feet and Myrcella sniffles all over again.

“When I was little, maybe your age, I wanted to learn to fight with a sword.”  Mother points her spoon at Mulan.  “Just like her.”

“Did Grandfather say yes?” Myrcella asks.  Grandfather likes swords. He has a few hanging on the wall of his house.

Mother shakes her head, reaching up to undo her ponytail.  “No. He said little girls didn’t swordfight, and big girls didn’t, either.  When Uncle Jaime asked for the same thing, he said _maybe someday_.”  Myrcella pulls Ser Pounce into her lap.  Mother sighs.  “So, Cella, what that means is sometimes we just can’t have the things we want.  Even if we want them more than anything.”

Myrcella thinks that if Robb and Sansa’s mom were there, she would have given Myrcella a hug.

When Tommen comes home from his pottery class, Mother pulls him into his room.  Myrcella hears Mother talking softly.  Then Tommen wails.  He screams.  Myrcella wonders if Mother is telling him _we just can’t have the things we want_ , or if she is giving him a hug.  And she cries into Lady Whiskers’ fur, that fur that makes her sniffle and sneeze.


	11. Bloodraven and Shitmouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pure crackfic written for crossingwinter. Pls to ignore :D

Shitmouth couldn’t sleep for the pain in his head.  The pain throbbed at his temples and rattled in his skull because he couldn’t sleep.  He was a man tortured, plagued by sleepless nights and crazed days.

It was that  _music,_ thatblasted buggering bloody fucking  _music_ , the likes of which he’d never heard before in his life.  It sounded like music straight out of the deepest depths of the Seven Fucking Hells, and it  _never stopped_.  It played by day; it played even louder by night as he tried to catch a bit of rest.  He’d heard Harrenhal was haunted, but no one ever said the place was haunted by a bloody _song_.

“Shit,” he said one day to Dunsen as they walked the outer walls of the castle.  “D’you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Dunsen grunted.

“That sound.  Shit, I’d rather be fucked up the arse by Gregor’s spear than hear this music one second longer.”

Dunsen stared at Shitmouth sideways.  “There’s no music.  Music?  At Harrenhal?”  He laughed.  “Not bloody likely.”

But Shitmouth knew what he was hearing and he knew it was  _real_.  A pile of horse’s dung was brighter than Dunsen, anyway, so Shitmouth didn’t even know why he’d asked.

Determined to find out where it came from, one night Shitmouth began to follow the sound, armed with just a candle and his nightshirt.  Strangely, that bloody music got  _louder_ as he exited the warmth (a sad fucking excuse for warmth, but warmth nonetheless) of Harrenhal’s stone walls and walked toward the godswood.

The sound was coming from the godswood?  “Well, fuck me sideways, “ Shitmouth muttered.  “Trees that play music?  That could be worth more than whatever falls down Tywin Lannister’s privy shaft.”

Entranced by the idea of some sort of magical tree that could earn him enough coin to leave the Mountain’s service for good, Shitmouth didn’t notice a particularly large tree root underneath his feet.  He tripped.  By the time he hit the ground, letting out a large gust of air and an “Oh, FUCK it all!” his candle had gone out.  It was dark.

And someone was laughing.

“Show yourself!”

The voice cackled like an old crone, and Shitmouth felt the front of his nightshirt grow warm.  Such was his fear that he couldn’t even find it in him to care that he’d pissed himself like a bloody half-wit.

“I said fucking  _show yourself_ ,” Shitmouth wailed, “else I’ll—”

“You’ll do nothing,” the voice said.  “You have nothing to do anything with.  Besides, I’m just having a bit of fun.”

“Wh—Who are you?”  The voice was so loud, so  _everywhere_.  It even sounded like it was coming from the root he’d tripped over.  “What is this?”

“My name is Brynden, Brynden Rivers,” the voice said, “though I am known throughout Westeros as Lord Bloodraven.”  Shitmouth felt his eyes widen.  He thought that bloody freak had died years ago.  Hadn’t he?  “And I  _do_ hope you enjoyed my music.”


	12. Qyburn/Pycelle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the one, the only, QYCELLE! requested by crookedneighbour.

Qyburn left the door to his small cell unlocked nightly.  It gave him great pleasure to silently acknowledge his companion’s shameful weaknesses in this way.  Qyburn knew the older man flushed red each time he slipped through the door; he could feel the heat on the man’s cheeks in the dark.

The halls of the Citadel were left unguarded by night, as there was no reason to distrust a building full of studious acolytes.  (Or so the poor fools thought). Because of this, Qyburn knew who the footfalls belonged to as soon as he heard them sounding from far down the stone corridor.  Pycelle.

Qyburn reached underneath his mattress (an excellent hiding place, he had found, and one he used most frequently) for his sharpest, thinnest blade.

“Qyburn,” Pycelle breathed.

“Good evening,Pycelle,” Qyburn whispered, patting the mattress and smiling in the dark.  Suddenly Pycelle was sliding into the narrow space next to him.  The mattress was not made to fit two men, but comfort was not the purpose of these evenings.  “Why is it that you wait til the hour of the eel to come see me?”  He trickled his fingers over the stubble on Pycelle’s round cheeks.  “Dearest Pycelle.  Why don’t you come sooner?  It can’t be that you feel _ashamed_ of me, can it?”

“Of-Of course not,” Pycelle said, and Qyburn pressed his bony fingers to Pycelle’s neck.  His pulse hammered there.  Poor Pycelle.  His body would always betray the Citadel’s conditioning.

“Perhaps it is just that you forget to come to me earlier,” Qyburn said.  “I know how absorbed we both are with our studies.  Please roll up your nightshirt for me—ah, yes, just like that.”  His fingers now traced the dip between Pycelle’s collar bones as Pycelle rolled his nightshirt up to expose his thighs.

Qyburn pressed his knife to the soft flesh there.  Pycelle whimpered for a brief moment.  Qyburn waited til his moment of weakness had passed, and then laboriously traced the form of a Q into Pycelle’s thigh.  The acolyte breathed in and out, in and out.  Were there light to see by, Qyburn knew he would see tears in the man’s eyes.  And he would also see—

“Now you won’t forget again,” Qyburn said kindly, his hand running over the telling bulge underneath Pycelle’s nightshirt.  “You’ll like this, won’t you?  You’ll like how your skin will always remember me.”

Pycelle whimpered like a child.  His hips thrust slightly, then insistently, toward Qyburn’s open palm.


	13. Ellaria/Oberyn, 1960s New York

Everyone within a couple-mile radius of Washington Square Park knew the stories about Oberyn Martell.  Andy Warhol had offered to paint him; Oberyn had turned it down.  Lou Reed had asked him to play recorder during his latest recording session with the Velvet Underground; Oberyn had just smiled and said,  _That’s not what I like to use my mouth for._ Oberyn had gotten arrested protesting over in Union Square last month and wound up with three blond, blue-eyed Irish specimens of New York’s Finest sucking his dick in the holding cell.

These stories didn’t impress Ellaria.  Lately in Greenwich Villagethese pretentious types were about as easy to come by as references to Grace Slick’s alcoholism on Jefferson Airplane’s latest album.  She had no time for that, nor did she care to hear about someone’s dick—at least, not when she had so many beautiful, high, blonde Midwestern girls ready to  _fuck the Establishment, I wanna be free!_ in her arms at every party.

What impressed her was—well, she couldn’t say, exactly.  But whenever Oberyn Martell with his thick black hair, slithery smirk and skin such a similar shade to her own showed up on the scene, everything around her faded into the background, and her body warmed in a way it never had for anyone else.

“May I have this dance, milady?” he’d say, bowing like he was a knight and  these fifth-floor walkups were his castle, and he’d waltz Ellaria around no matter what music was playing, spinning her and spinning her til she grew so dizzy she forgot, for a while, anyone else existed.


	14. Modern AU; Maegor and Visenya

He tries to play it cool.  Tries.  He guesses he looks cool, leaning back against the sticky vinyl in their booth at Ihop in his old denim jacket with a toothpick hanging out of his mouth.

But when Mom gets back from the bathroom, striding towards their booth in her big, high boots with her long braid swinging behind her, he asks the question for the fourth time.

"You’re  _sure_ no one’s gonna think it’s weird we’re not at his funeral?”

Mom sighs and rubs at her temples.  The waitress brings the check for Maegor’s three orders of buttermilk pancakes, bacon and sausage, and Mom’s side order of sausage and a fruit cup.  Mom pays her in cash, counting out the bills with her quick fingers.  Only then does she bother to answer Maegor.  Probably because she’s already answered Maegor three times today.

"I didn’t raise you to distrust me."

Maegor looks into her eyes.  He’s built just like Dad, born to fight (though Dad doesn’t get how fighting can be fun, just pure fucking ecstasy) but he has Mom’s eyes, and when he looks at her cold anger it’s almost like he’s looking at himself.

"Aenys is not my son," Mom continues.  "He might be your brother, but he’s done wrong to you.  Social graces might say we both have to be at his funeral, but a Targaryen never lets what is  _polite_ get in the way of what is  _right_.”

She reaches her fork across the table to Maegor’s last, half-eaten pancake and cuts herself a piece.

"Are you telling me  _you_ don’t know how to handle someone who gets in the way?”  The look in her eyes has changed, and Maegor can’t tell if she’s loving him or making fun of him.  Mom’s always been tough to read.  ” _My_ baby boy?”

"You’re right."  And Maegor feels better.  Sure, he might be a grown man who’s bigger and stronger than everyone, but here where no one sees he’s still Mom’s baby boy,  _Visenya Targaryen’s_ baby boy, and that’s all right.  ”Fuck Aenys, man.  Fuckin’—”

Mom lets him see the laugh for a moment before she hides it behind her hand.

Maegor smiles and finishes his last pancake. 

Mom takes his hand in hers and stares down at his busted-up knuckles.  The joints are all weird-looking from how many times he’s fucked his hands up.  She  _hmms_.  ”This mess is healing well.  All those guys Aenys financed will be out of the way. You’ll be ready to fight again soon.”

"Yeah.  You think so?"

"I  _know_ so, Maegor.  It’s my job.”

She stands up, folding her leather jacket over her arm so no one can see the Targaryen dragon stenciled on the back.  The logo of champions, Maegor thinks.  It was once the logo of champions.  Now it will be again.

"This was nice, Maegor.  Now come on, drive your mom home."


	15. Modern AU; Rhaella

she was tired of being the “good girl” and tired of being invisible.

in her family she was the “good girl”—she had to be.  mother was dead. father tried his best but was too sick to be reliable.  she and her brother were so close in age that they were always together, doing the same things at the same time.  even their friend groups kind of intersected.  but because aerys had more demanding behaviors, even as a kid, rhaella got pigeonholed into being the “good” and “helpful” kid, and she hated it.

amongst her friends, especially her best friends joanna and loreza, her personality is the least noticeable, or so rhaella thinks.  she’s just kind of there, as bland as her pale skin.  rhaella has started to feel like, well…jo and lor are both fun-loving and don’t take shit.  they work hard, they play hard.  rhaella’s afraid they’re going to start think of her as someone to feel sorry for instead of an equal.  she doesn’t have the tough personality they have, and she’s embarrassed because they’re sexually active in ways she’s not…comfortable being, though she doesn’t want to explain why.

this isn’t what she wants the rest of her teenage years to be like.  so she goes to a shady shop to get her belly button pierced.  she wants to piss her family off, to make her friends complain that it’s tacky.  she wants to do something for HERSELF and something different than what would be expected of her.  she wants to do something that will make people talk—that will make people talk about rhaella targaryen.

maybe this action shouldn’t seem like a big deal—but to rhaella, it is.


	16. 1930s Germany AU; Aerys/Jaime

The boy was dangerous.  He should have known.   _He knew_.  But he didn’t want to understand.

-

Aerys was a painter from a vast legacy of the fuckers.  He was an Impressionist, or a Cubist, or a finger-painter, depending on the day.  He stood up close to his canvas and painted dragons with his fingers. Scrawled their wings with his eyes closed.  Deconstructed the parts that made them whole and painted them mixed-up scrambled-up on the canvas. The critics were starting to misunderstand.  But the more their confusion buzzed in the columns of the _Tageblatt_ , the more Aerys understood  _himself_.  He was a dragon.  He painted the parts of who he was so he could scrutinize them, so he could show off their beauty.

But this did not pay the rent.  It did for his father, and grandfather and everyone before, but the times were changing. The Republic was no more.  And the new man in charge said it was time for practicality.

So he painted portraits.  He observed people the way he observed his dragons and his dragon-self.  He fixed their hair and smoothed their clothes with his claws. He tied his long silver hair back and talked and observed.  He felt as though he’d  _observed_ nearly half of Berlin.

Then he met Jaime Lannister at the El Dorado, and he was blinded.

-

Jaime seemed too young to wear a uniform, but he did wear it well.  The red armband he wore set off the green of his eyes in a way that looked like fire.  The set of his chiseled jaw that the uniform inspired in him broke down in an instant when Aerys stroked that jaw, cupped his smooth balls, stroked his cock.

Aerys hadn’t needed to  _observe_ Jaime when he saw him that night at the El Dorado.  In the flickering lamplight, among all the other men whose faces were pale and sallow, drunk and too ruddy, Aerys had  _seen_ , and he’d  _known_.  Jaime had looked as golden and glowing as the name  _El Dorado_ promised.  In the dim light of Aerys’s studio, Jaime was golden.  In the dark, as they lay together for those few precious hours, Jaime was golden.

“I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you,” Aerys would tell him.  “I am like a dragon, with you in my hoard.”

“I have to go back,” Jaime would say.  “They’ll find out where I am.”  He would kiss Aerys then, though, and the dampness of his cock against Aerys’s thigh would remind Aerys of their lovemaking, and arouse him again.

“Just a little longer,” he’d say, not able to feel the foolishness or the danger, so in love did he feel.  He was only a painter.  He’d be on no one’s list.  “Just a little longer, my beautiful golden love.”

And he’d roll onto all fours, inviting Jaime to mount him again, and Jaime—so young,  _so young_ he was—could not resist.

-

The sound of the door to the flat opening came as a shock.  Aerys imagined wings rising up behind his back, ready to carry him away, ready to carry him to battle.  He scrambled for his trousers.

Next to him Jaime stood naked, unbelieving, the shock widening his green eyes, making them burn bright.

The commanding officer was not a man Aerys had painted, but he had observed many like him.  He was disgusted, but his disgust was not personal.    He would get this done fast.  Aerys was not afraid.  Part of him still imagined the wings behind him, flapping, flapping.

The officer put the gun in Jaime’s hand.  He gave an order.

Jaime pointed the gun at Aerys, his hand trembling only slightly.  His lips part, but he said nothing.

_They’ll kill him too, they’ll kill him next,_ Aerys realized.  Only then did he feel fear.

Jaime’s lips quivered.  He seemed to be trying to say something.  The officer gave the order once more.  Jaime pulled the

 


	17. Daenerys and Viserys, II

The grimy attic window lets very little light in, but Viserys and Dany still wake early.  Even here where it seems safe, they are still used to traveling, moving, running.

Dany has become a quiet child who listens well to her brother; still, Viserys likes her best in the morning, for morning is when she is quietest and most beautiful.  The grey Braavosi sunrises cannot lessen how her hair gleams.  In only a bit of light, she still shines.   _They_ shine. 

_They_ shine, Viserys thinks, running his sleep-mussed hair through his fingers.  He and Dany look the same.  They are of the same blood, of dragon’s blood, and nothing,  _nothing_ can take their power and hide their glory.

He nudges Dany, who stirs next to him.  “Let me fix your hair,” he says.  “Then you can fix mine like I’ve taught you.”

She nods and sits up without a word, bowing her head to make it easy for him.

The Braavosi merchant they are staying with has not yet made it possible for them to bathe, and their hair feels dirty and grease-laden, but in the mornings this does not matter to Viserys.  When he takes strands of Dany’s hair in his hands to make two braids that encircle her head and meet at the back like a crown, it feels to him like he holds Myrish lace and the finest Lorathi textiles. He weaves the strands together carefully.  This morning, Dany gives him no reason to pull or tug.

“You look like a princess,” he says when she is done, and she blushes and thanks him.  Then he leans down so his sister can give him a braid-crown of his own.  Her fingers are clumsy.  She is young, but she is learning.  Her uncertain fingers still feel good as they brush against his scalp, as his sister crowns him their king just as she does every morning.

 


	18. Modern AU; Arya and Sansa

Staring at Arya over the small diner table, Sansa couldn’t believe how long it had been since she last saw her sister.  Ten years, she thought, and Arya agreed.  It had been ten years since Sansa had seen her, or spoken to her, but not a second of that time had gone by in which Arya had not been on Sansa’s mind.

It wasn’t like her disappearance was a mystery, or even a disappearance, really.  One day Arya had had enough and was just  _gone_.  She’d dropped out of high school and hopped on a plane to Berlin with her boyfriend Gendry and that was that.  She’d been in touch with Rickon, and Bran, and Jon, but no one told Sansa anything, and at first she was all right with that because of how mad she’d been and how envious she’d been.  Sansa could never do that, just pick up and leave when she couldn’t take a situation anymore.  She was the type of girl who stayed, wasn’t she?  It was her duty to stay.

And now they filled each other in, all the missing pieces of their ten years of being estranged sisters.  Looking at Arya, Sansa noticed a wiry toughness about her, and when Arya had taken off her black sweater, she’d pulled the neckline of the huge men’s tshirt she wore (clearly not  _hers_ , Sansa thought) to show her the wolf’s head tattooed between her shoulder blades. 

She’d been living in some performance art enclave in Berlin, dancing at their shows, bartending to make some money, and doing jeet kune do and krav maga.  Sansa hadn’t even heard of those.  Martial arts weren’t quite Sandor’s thing.  There were too many  _rules.  Are you and Gendry still together?_ Arya pulled out her phone to show Sansa pictures.  They were somehow still together, living in some sort of polyamorous  _thing_ with Aegon, who was a young, rich, English runaway with bright blue hair, and Jaqen, who’d defected from East to West Berlin in the 80s in some sort of crazy way, and held his red-and-white hair over his face in the photo because he didn’t like having his picture taken.  They’d all flown here with her yesterday, but only Gendry would be coming to the funeral.

And how was Sansa?  Well, Sansa didn’t know what to tell Arya.  About her independent boutique that was failing because Jeyne’s problems made her just too unreliable to work with.  About the engagement ring on her finger that still hadn’t turned into a wedding ring, _still_ , because anytime she and Sandor sat down to plan, they’d run into trouble, and their couple’s therapist said they could make it but it would take  _work,_ and Sansa was so tired of all the years of  _work_ , and—

“I’m fine,” is what she told Arya.  “Everything’s great.  I’m engaged.”  She held up her ring.  Despite everything, every time she held the ring up to the sunlight its glittering reminded her of Sandor when he’d proposed, how he tried to be so gruff and played it so cool but had burst into tears when she’d said her happy  _yes_.

“Bran told me,” Arya said.  She emptied a sugar packet into her coffee, and then a second and then a third.  “He wants to know when the wedding is.  I said, why didn’t he just ask you?”

“That’s a lot of sugar,” Sansa said, simply because she didn’t know what to say back.  “It’s bad for your teeth, Arya.”

Arya stared at her before raising the cup to her lips.  When she’d put it back down, she said, “Everything’s really  _fine?_   Mom dying must be hard for you.”

“It is,” Sansa said, staring down into her cup of watery earl grey.  “I’m so sad but I feel like I have to feel  _guilty_ for being sad.  I—”

“You’re crazy,” said Arya, but she smiled when she said it, and she leaned in close.  “The way you feel about Mom is your business.  The things Mom did aren’t your fault.  I took care of it, y’know?  I showed her it wasn’t okay.  I guess Jon did too, in his own way.”

“I should have said something.  I shouldn’t have—I didn’t appreciate you enough.”

“But that was a long time ago.  We can’t do anything about it.”  Looking into Arya’s face, the one she’d made fun of with Jeyne so often when they were kids, Sansa realized how beautiful they were.  Both Stark sisters were beautiful.  It was silly, how important this was to her, but it gave her comfort.

“You’re right.  We can just change the future, I suppose.  And I’d like to.”  Sansa swallowed.  “I’d like you at my wedding.  You can bring all your boyfriends.  My sister and all her boyfriends.”

“Oh  _please,_ ” Arya said, grinning.  “You don’t want them all there, trust me.  Jaqen is kind of creepy and chain-smokes, and Aegon never shuts the fuck up.  And his blue hair won’t match your bridesmaids’ dresses.”

“So he’ll have to dye his hair to match them, you’ll have to make him.”  Sansa had started giggling.  She couldn’t stop.

“I totally forgot what a piece of work you are,” Arya said.  “Everyone thinks you’re so normal, but you’re totally  _weird_.”  Her eyes were sparkling.  That was the thing about her Stark grey eyes.  They could be severe, but they could be beautiful, too.

“Oh, Arya.  My life is totally making me weird.  My business is falling apart, my best friend has mental health problems I can’t fix, and Sandor and I haven’t made any progress on planning our wedding.  I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell you this.  Your life seems so _cool_ , and I—”

“Stop it.  You wouldn’t want my life.  When I was 19 Aegon and I got our nipples pierced on a stage in front of 30 artsy Germans.  For  _Art_.  It was a bad decision.”

“Ew!”

“Exactly.  See?  Your life might be hard right now, but it has the stuff you want in it. It’s gonna be okay.”  Arya took her hand and squeezed.  “It has me in it too, I think.  If you want.”

“Of course I want.”  Tears welled in Sansa’s eyes.  Arya’s eyes looked suddenly solemn.  “It’s hard not to have a sister.”

“You have a sister,” Arya said.  “You always did.”

 


End file.
